I've been using mostly PF's with Prorap and Bumkin covers during the day, FB's at night, with all three of my little ones...but I'm really wanting to venture into diaper making for myself, especially since I now have a working sewing machine in the house! I've got a decent serger too, so I should be set!

DH is not all that thrilled about me investing in a ton of high-quality fabrics just yet, he wants me to do some trial and error with cheaper stuff first.

SOOO........I'm thinking that this giant stash of flannel receiving blankets is about to be "repurposed"! I'm in Germany, so I don't really have ready access to my standby craft and fabric stores, I'm kind of limited to what I've got. I did find a new item in our post exchange the other day that really surprised me, though--microfiber "dusting cloths" for a buck a piece!!!

Here's what I'm thinking...I've already got covers, so fitteds would be an easy way to go--and the covers would hide any boo-boos or ugly fabrics. I could make doublers out of a couple of layers of flannel and a microfiber towel and then sandwich it inside the diaper, right? I'm hoping to at least make a few fitteds for my older girls, both of whom are still in dipes. I goofed when I ordered the premium PF's and I'm not liking the European PF's I ended up with...therefore I'm not enjoying CD'ing with the older girls as much as I am with the newborn. Time to fix that!

Have any of you recycled fabrics you already have on hand to make dipes? Is there a pattern that would lend itself more toward recycled materials? What other fabrics would you use in dipes? How about old t-shirts? With seven of us in the house, there are a LOT of possibilities for recycling! I know where to start, but it would be great to have a few suggestions or been-there-done-that's.

the only thing that i have made so far is toddler prefolds. i want to get into fitteds and such but just haven't yet...i'm kind of a novice sewer. anyway, i had a ton of old t-shirts hanging around that i just could NOT get rid of...my alma mater, tees from traveling, ones my grandma gave me...and so i repurposed them into prefolds. mine have 8 layers of hemp in the middle, the tee pattern on one side and wicking fleece on the other. we normally can't do hemp but this way it doesn't touch the skin.

there are lots more sites like the one above. just google "frugal diapering" GOOD LUCK!

Cool link! I think I'd seen that a while back before I had access to a sewing machine and all it did was make me sad that I couldn't sew!

Does anybody know if I can repurpose old sweatshirt fleece? Would they make halfway decent stay-dry (ish) liners?

Ooooh, another query since I seem to be surrounded by gals who love wool...can recycled wool sweaters (or in my case, icky wool Army blankets ) be made into velcro wrap-style covers? See, I'm a big chicken when it comes to covers...I've had way too much BAD experience with pull-ons of any sort, so I would prefer to stay with wrap covers, and I'd love to get my foot in the woolen diaper door without forking out the big bucks for the name-brand wool covers or going with longies. Suggestions? Is there something I need to do to prep the wool? Is there like a Diaper Wool 101 class I can sign up for?

I just found out that our base's thrift shop is doing a bag sale--all thrift shop property (dontations, expired consignments) is $3 for every paper bag I can fill, so I'm planning on going NUTS tomorrow when they open. Anything by way of fabrics that I need to look for other than wool sweaters and flannel and t-shirts?

100% cotton sweatshirt fleece makes yummy dipes. You could also try to grab a good quality polyester fleece jacket and do a cover out of that. You can do covers out of sweaters, or yes, the army blanket could work but it might be a bit scratchy even after lanolizing. You can use almost anything cotton in dipes for absorbancy and polyester/wool for waterproofing.
Hope you found a ton

__________________--Deanne-- WAHM to Benjamin 02/03/06 and our new cricket Zachary 05/30/08Nice recycled longies and lots of dipes now in stock!www.hyenacart.com/BetterBums Fridays at noon